AT&T, the nation's second-largest carrier, on Friday morning started accepting pre-orders for Apple's iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3, both announced at yesterday's media event. That came as a bit of surprise as Apple's own webstore, which went offline more than three hours ago, was late to the game and came back online after AT&T had already started collecting reservations for the new devices.
AT&T is no longer in the business of selling Beats Music subscriptions, reports MacRumors. The site spoke with an employee for the carrier who said he's been instructed to stop offering the service to customers as a monthly plan add-on.
Additionally, AT&T has pulled all references to Beats Music from its website, and no longer offers the option to sign up for the service when selecting a new phone plan. Beats Music has also removed "Subcribe with AT&T" from its website.
The US government has just handed AT&T a significant fine for allowing third party companies to stealthily tack on their charges to customer phone bills for things like spam SMS text messages. The announcement was made on Wednesday in a joint press conference by the FCC and FTC, who say this is the largest "cramming" settlement in history.
In total, AT&T will pay out $105 million to settle the case—$80 million is earmarked for the FTC, which it will use to set up a reimbursement program, $5 million will go to the FCC, and $20 million will go to individual states. Additionally, the carrier has been ordered to begin proactively informing subscribers if extra fees are going on their accounts.
AT&T confirmed on Monday that it suffered a data breach in August, carried out by one of its own employees. In a letter to Vermont's attorney general, officials for the carrier said a former staffer accessed customer account information, including Social Security and driver's license numbers.
Additionally, the company notes that the insider viewed Customer Proprietary Network Information (or CPNI), which includes metadata such as time, duration and destination of phone calls. It would not identify, however, how many of its customer accounts were affected by the breach.
Leading United States carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint — have responded to the release of Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in literally the same manner, by doubling the amount of LTE data included in shared plans albeit on a temporary basis.
AT&T is doubling cellular data on 15GB and higher Mobile Share Value plans through October 31.
Sprint has responded by changing its 32/40/60GB Family Share Pack buckets to 60/80/120GB ones at no additional charge, also valid through October 31.
And arriving late to the party, Verizon is now getting in on the double-data action by increasing the amount of data available to customers who subscribe to its higher-end family plans. The Big Red carrier's time-limited promotion lasts between tomorrow and — you guessed right — October 31.
Jump past the fold for additional information and the fine print.
AT&T, the nation's second-biggest wireless provider, is allegedly planning on rolling out the Wi-Fi Calling feature to its subscribers, but in 2015 rather than this year, LightReading reported Friday.
Already supported on T-Mobile, but not coming anytime soon to Verizon (Sprint has yet to announce it), Wi-Fi Calling is supported by the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The feature will be coming to older iPhones from the iPhone 5 onward, courtesy of the free iOS 8 update scheduled to release next Wednesday.
Coming soon after pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went live last night, both Apple and AT&T reported that the respective companies were seeing record pre-orders, with demand for the larger iPhone 6 surpassing that of both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5.
Apple, despite its late start, saw record pre-orders last night alone, issuing a statement saying, "Response to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been incredible with a record number of preorders overnight." Although Apple didn't specify exactly how many units were sold, we can assume it surpassed iPhone 5 sales of 2 million in 24 hours when Apple last had pre-orders two years ago.
Every year it is the same scenario: Apple unveils a new iPhone, and we all start wondering what we're financially able to afford. The question on everybody's lips then becomes "am I eligible for an upgrade?" If you bought your device 2 years ago, then chances are you are already eligible for an upgrade. If you're not sure what your current status is, we have a way for you to check if you're going to be able to pick up the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus at the subsidized price, or if you'll have to break that piggy bank you've been preciously keeping on your dresser for the past 15 years.
AT&T announced this afternoon that, starting today, both new and existing subscribers are eligible for a $100 bill credit when activating a new line of service with a smartphone on Next—AT&T's upgrade program that allows customers to get new devices on installment plans.
More specifically, the Next program allows qualifying customers to get a new mobile device for $0 down, without upgrade or activation fees, and no annual contract. The cost of the equipment is spread over a two-year term, which makes this $100 promo somewhat appealing.
As previously rumored, Apple's started offering the iPhone on AT&T's Next program on its webstore in the United States, 9to5Mac reported this morning.
The much-needed change allows cash-strapped customers who prefer buying their devices full price to spread the cost of hardware with fixed monthly payments. This marks the first time the Cupertino firm has supported any carrier's installment plan online.
After the nation's #4 carrier, T-Mobile, last year killed contracts and unbundled the cost of hardware from the wireless service, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint followed suit by unveiling their own financing and early upgrade offers.
As we doubt this offer is exclusive to AT&T, we're expecting the firm to start offering the popular smartphone on Verizon's and T-Mobile's installment plans sooner than later.
AT&T has confirmed with ITWorld that it has suffered a security breach where customer information was accessed. The breach actually occurred back in April, but was only disclosed this week by the company in a filing with California regulators.
According to the report, personal information—including social security numbers and call records—was accessed for an unknown number of customers in the breach. It's believed the attack was part of an effort to obtain unlock codes from the carrier...
AT&T has increased its activation fees for customers who opt for two-year contracts. The increase is only a couple of dollars, from $36 to $40, but when you consider that you have to pay that for every device, every upgrade, it starts to add up.
The move is part of a larger effort by the carrier to push more subscribers away from the traditional contract/subsidy model, and towards Next. The upgrade program allows customers to get a new device every year for $0 down, and zero fees...